Hello everybody,
I'm proud to announce.... the MATING TIME has started!!! Well, at least for amphibians :-)

Today, for the first time this year, I did the field photo session. I went to the Lagiewniki Forest - a very interesting area being the biggest natural forest within the administrative city limits in Europe. It is located within the "Wzniesienia Lodzkie" Landscape Park (about the park, in Polish). There are several nature reserves in that area, but also some ponds which were my main destination this time.

In these ponds several species of amphibians mate. First I counted on Moor Frog (Rana arvalis), whose males turn blue during breeding season, but apparently it's still too early for them.
Thus, I focused on:

Rana temporaria - European Common Brown Frog
Family: Ranidae

This species species is definitely the most abundant brown frog in Poland. It inhabits forests, gardens and meadows from lowlands to mountains up to 3000 m above sea level. Also it breeds at earliest among the European frogs (January in Ireland, March in Poland, May in Finland) and uses various types of ponds.
Generally it spends most of its life on land, hunting for small invertebrates and comes to water only during breeding season.

Here you can see a portrait of couple in mating colours. They are not so prominent, in males the throat turns bluish and the whole body darkens, while in females the body sides turn rusty-red.

Common Frog is an explosive breeder - it means that large population breeds in one pond at the same time. I will show you more pictures of that interesting phenomenon on the following days...

Hi Michal.
Excellent note and perfect close-up shot. It is very colourful and extremely well composed. Both POV and DOF are simply wonderful as well as the small but very smooth BG. Lighting, exposure and contrast of your picture are very nice too. In a word, skillfully done, interesting job. My compliments and TFS.
Alexei.

A splendid photo of "the maiting season" :))
It pretty much already happen here in Romania (i've just returned yesterday from a field trip and the R. temporaria spawn was already laid and looked pretty old, so i think that their mating time here was about 3 weeks ago...but it's only normal for it to be a bit later in northern or colder parts), but it's nice to catch such a great example. I'm also very curious of your future photos of them :)

The resemblance to R. arvalis is a bit evident here, too, if you observe the blue-ish throught of the male.
The details in your photo are terrific and the colors lovely and very well saturated.
Very good "double-eye-contact" :)) and charming composition.